The Others...what makes them tick?

[Illusion]

Just as the CotF went to war with the FM when their lands were first invaded, did the Others react the same when the FM invaded the lands of Always Winter?

Is the Long Night basically the name of the war that ensued by the Others retaliating against the FM on their turf?

Do they really hibernate for thousands of years, or just like the CotF will only reveal themselves by choice?

The impression given is that the Others are supernatural beings, that have been MIA for, like ever, then wake up when they sense a long winter approaching just to destroy the population of Westeros.

Of course, the CotF helped the FM to build the magical Wall to keep them out, so it figures the CotF are scared of them too?

What do you guys think, what are they really? Will GRRM surprise us and reveal they aren't the villains we believe them to be....or will be find they are much worse than any story Old Nan could tell?

I just can't make sense of it. If they are this native mythological force that brings ice and destruction, nearly destroying 'old' Westeros, then why wasn't the entire of Westeros completely ice and 'ruled' by the Others before the FM showed up?

Did the CotF previously have a similar pact with the Others as to what the CotF had with the FM...this is our territory and that is yours.....

[Missionary]

Will GRRM surprise us and reveal they aren't the villains we believe them to be?

Yes.

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

[Illusion]

Yes.

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

A strong possibility, I mean if you turn a blind eye to the previous Long Night, killing a few crows/wildlings, the recent re-animation of dead stuff and taking Crasters sons, they really haven't done anyone any harm for thousands of years.

There has to be a reason other than just being evil....but what is it?

[Missionary]

I think the Others are an extremely misunderstood race who had been driven to near extinction by the Children and wanted a little payback or just to reclaim their old land. The First men got caught in the cross fire and pushed the Others back and locked them out. I think of them as Native Americans, who were driven off their land, only this time they put up a big wall to keep them out. Now they are just pushing back to reclaim their old land :)

This is all very highly speculative though. For all we know they could indeed just be the evil bogeymen they are being made out to be, although with GRRM I am fairly 70% sure they are not.

[Illusion]

I think the Others are an extremely misunderstood race who had been driven to near extinction by the Children and wanted a little payback or just to reclaim their old land. The First men got caught in the cross fire and pushed the Others back and locked them out. I think of them as Native Americans, who were driven off their land, only this time they put up a big wall to keep them out. Now they are just pushing back to reclaim their old land :)

This is all very highly speculative though. For all we know they could indeed just be the evil bogeymen they are being made out to be, although with GRRM I am fairly 70% sure they are not.

Interesting, so you think the CotF were the aggressors towards the Others. I got the other impression, but if you're right the Others have had a pretty raw deal then, bless them. Plus it means the CotF have manipulated the FM into perceiving the Others are the real enemy....but to what purpose? Plot thickens!

[Ahura Mazda]

Yes.

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

Why should we ever be the bad ones?

Land was needed to fed families, peaceful coexistence was not convenient or possible, hence one of the two parties started the war.. I tend to side to my own specie when the bloodshed it does is not for fun but rather for very logical survival reasons..

The great other isn't Morgoth, WW aren't orcs.. they are just another specie willingly to expand their own territory, frightened by different beings and ready to conquer their rights through ice and blood.

[The Great and Mighty Poo]

Yes.

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

Worst possible ending ever!!

[Kienn]

The Others are the First Men.

They built The Wall to hold their last bit of land against the invading Andals from the South.

Eventually the CotF betrayed The Pact they had made with the First Men and started giving obsidian to the Andals to finish off the First Men.

And the rest is the resulting twisted legends.

Perhaps the northern Andals did mix with the Others(Night's King) and gained the "blood of the First Men" and found house Stark. Or maybe they just appropriated their names and customs as invaders do.

[Feliciano69]

Yes.

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

Isn't that a trope he might challenge as well ?

[Lord Reaver]

What makes the Others tick ? Baby craster blood, obviously. :devil:

[Snowmelter]

The Others certainly enjoyed killing Royce in the prologue to GoT.

[King of Vaes Tolorro]

They will probably be far worse than any of Nan's stories. The Children of the Forest are more like American Indians, in tune with nature and the world, a World that did nothing but watch as some of its more virulent children massacred its sibling. The Others seem to be hell bent on turning every thing undead. Patroclo, you are right. Morgoroth merely wanted to conquer the world. The Others wish to remake it in their own image. They are like Alduin World Eater, the Zerg Overmind, and the other world consuming creatures of fiction.

[Feliciano69]

Whatever their motivations are...................will the Great Other show itself ?

[Gneisenau]

It will turn out that WE are the baddies. Or atleast the CoTF and the First Men.

Ragnarok, in Norse mythology, was the predestined death of the Germanic gods. A three-year winter led to a final battle on the Vigrid Plain, where the gods and the frost giants fought the epic final battle. Ragnarok marks the end of the old world, and the beginning of the new, current world.

Also the Norse gods were mean to the giants.

[Lord Reaver]

In all fairness, the Jotun were hardly pictures of saintly perfection themselves...

[Strong Flame]

Is it possible that they don't have intentions or motives. Not as we'd see them anyway. Their biggest attribute is the whole ice/cold thing. Similarly, the children's attribute seems to be growth/earth. Is it not possible that the others and CotF are just manifestations of different aspects of the Earth, which is the oldest kind of magic, and one that pervades interpenetrates all others?

In this sense, the Others are not just the boogeyman, really, but they aren't really tragic victims are warlike villains either. Their motives are something that is wholly inconceivable to us, because they are thinking on a different level. Fighting against them is kind of like trying to fight against the cold,..you can put on a jacket or run south, but ultimately cold is cold and can't be defeated in a conventional sense.

I think of the part in the Bhagavad Gita in which Arjuna asks to see the face of a god (Krishna) and when he does, the infinite knowledge that fills his head causes him immense, unbearable pain, for he does not have the capacity to understand or accept that knowledge. Humans are finite creatures who only understand things in finite ways, we cannot grasp the mind of a god, who is all knowing, nor can we grasp the infinite nature of the universe. I say this, because, being more elemental beings, perhaps the Others are, not gods, but less finite than humans, so they exist on a different plain of understanding. We fear them because we fear cold and death and they represent that, both immediately and on a larger scale.

The CotF represent, life, and growth, but cannot exist alone, but in balance with the Others, and with other elemental beings/facets of the Earth. Perhaps these include Dragons (fire), Krakens (water) and any other number of spirits of the earth, big and small. In this I do kind of see all these creatures as existing in the sense that many ancient peoples (from Greeks and Romans, to native Americans, to Japanese...etc) saw the world...that everything has a spirit, that may or may not manifest itself to us. The Others, Dragons, Children and Krakens may just be some of the bigger players on the pantheon.

With all this taken into consideration, is it not possible that we can see the Long Winter as, really, a long winter? I'm not saying that the Others are imaginary or just metaphorical (well, they are, as well) but I am saying that they represent ice and death and so when there is a long hard winter, they come to kill. Just like IRL a long winter like that would cause deaths if we had similar tech to Westeros, only in ASOIAF there are actual physical manifestations of the cold death, the others, that literally attack and kill you. To beat all, they have in tow, reminders of all the others that they killed, which now are in their domain, which is the dead.

In this light, I can see the LW as an event which simply sees the F|M siding with the CotF because that is the side which the living must side on, because their domain is life. The children, perhaps, do not see the others in a way that is so polarized. Life and death must coexist, they seek to create life, not to extinguish death. It's all very Zen, and animist, and pagan...

...and I very much doubt it will ever be explicity stated in this way, but I think it will (and has been) hinted that this is the case...that we will never understand the Others because they cannot be understood by us. Like gravity, We (will, by the end, perhaps) know that they exist and how they work, but I don't think we will ever know why...

[IamMe90]

Is it possible that they don't have intentions or motives. Not as we'd see them anyway. Their biggest attribute is the whole ice/cold thing. Similarly, the children's attribute seems to be growth/earth. Is it not possible that the others and CotF are just manifestations of different aspects of the Earth, which is the oldest kind of magic, and one that pervades interpenetrates all others?

In this sense, the Others are not just the boogeyman, really, but they aren't really tragic victims are warlike villains either. Their motives are something that is wholly inconceivable to us, because they are thinking on a different level. Fighting against them is kind of like trying to fight against the cold,..you can put on a jacket or run south, but ultimately cold is cold and can't be defeated in a conventional sense.

I think of the part in the Bhagavad Gita in which Arjuna asks to see the face of a god (Krishna) and when he does, the infinite knowledge that fills his head causes him immense, unbearable pain, for he does not have the capacity to understand or accept that knowledge. Humans are finite creatures who only understand things in finite ways, we cannot grasp the mind of a god, who is all knowing, nor can we grasp the infinite nature of the universe. I say this, because, being more elemental beings, perhaps the Others are, not gods, but less finite than humans, so they exist on a different plain of understanding. We fear them because we fear cold and death and they represent that, both immediately and on a larger scale.

The CotF represent, life, and growth, but cannot exist alone, but in balance with the Others, and with other elemental beings/facets of the Earth. Perhaps these include Dragons (fire), Krakens (water) and any other number of spirits of the earth, big and small. In this I do kind of see all these creatures as existing in the sense that many ancient peoples (from Greeks and Romans, to native Americans, to Japanese...etc) saw the world...that everything has a spirit, that may or may not manifest itself to us. The Others, Dragons, Children and Krakens may just be some of the bigger players on the pantheon.

With all this taken into consideration, is it not possible that we can see the Long Winter as, really, a long winter? I'm not saying that the Others are imaginary or just metaphorical (well, they are, as well) but I am saying that they represent ice and death and so when there is a long hard winter, they come to kill. Just like IRL a long winter like that would cause deaths if we had similar tech to Westeros, only in ASOIAF there are actual physical manifestations of the cold death, the others, that literally attack and kill you. To beat all, they have in tow, reminders of all the others that they killed, which now are in their domain, which is the dead.

In this light, I can see the LW as an event which simply sees the F|M siding with the CotF because that is the side which the living must side on, because their domain is life. The children, perhaps, do not see the others in a way that is so polarized. Life and death must coexist, they seek to create life, not to extinguish death. It's all very Zen, and animist, and pagan...

...and I very much doubt it will ever be explicity stated in this way, but I think it will (and has been) hinted that this is the case...that we will never understand the Others because they cannot be understood by us. Like gravity, We (will, by the end, perhaps) know that they exist and how they work, but I don't think we will ever know why...

Wow, I love this, nice

[jet199]

When the Others got involved in the whole Night's King business they seemed to be quite happy to have a little kingdom at the Wall and didn't make any moves to invade further south. It was the Starks who attacked them and, as the Night's King was probably a Stark himself, this could have been a case of a family feud rather than good versus evil. However during the long night they seem to have waged a full scale campaign of conquest. I wonder it it was because the population had increase between the long night and the Night's King so they didn't need to invade as much land to get what they needed. Although it may just be a culture clash. The Boltons hunt women, the R'hllorists sacrifice humans and raise the dead. Both of these groups are considered evil and odd in Westeros and the Others do these things, and more, so they are seen as evil.

They seem to want certain things, human and animal sacrifice, hot blood for magic maybe, so they might invade when they need to top up their stores. Conversely they may be trying to top up their stores because they are planning to invade. They also seem to have herded the wildlings south of the Wall when they could have just killed them all. Or maybe they don't have sufficient force to kill the wildlings so they used scare tactics to move them. If they don't have sufficient force at the moment are they planning to do something to increase their power, get another Night's King or create a lot more corpses which can be wighted, or will they naturally get stronger with winter?

I think GRRM is hiding his monster, as a horror writer would, so I don't think we will really find out what is going on with the others until the last book. However I think they will be intelligent, rather than just forces of nature, but that intelligence will make them more dangerous to deal with not easier to negotiate with.

[juanml82]

Since this is ASOIAF, I guess the Others are the heroes of their own story. I also don't think any of the CotF or men would listen to their 'reasons' and agree with them.

[Illusion]

The Others are the First Men.

They built The Wall to hold their last bit of land against the invading Andals from the South.

Eventually the CotF betrayed The Pact they had made with the First Men and started giving obsidian to the Andals to finish off the First Men.

And the rest is the resulting twisted legends.

Perhaps the northern Andals did mix with the Others(Night's King) and gained the "blood of the First Men" and found house Stark. Or maybe they just appropriated their names and customs as invaders do.

If the Others built the Wall, then the major flaw is that the Andals and CotF can cross into their territory but the Others have essentially trapped themselves?